The interplay of historical, technological, legal, and economic events that surrounded the strident controversies involving two competing 1890s composing machines--John R. Rogers's Typograph and Ottmar Mergenthaler's Linotype--is examined in this paper. Using patent copies, court documents, trade journal reports and newspaper articles of the era, and press association accounts, the paper identifies and analyzes the role of the combatants, their machines, and patents, and the underlying forces involved in technological change. The paper first introduces briefly the economic and social concepts that had a bearing on the Mergenthaler-Rogers controversy and on the diffusion of the Linotype. The paper recounts the technological progress of typography from Gutenburg's movable type through the 1890s, and provides biographical information on Rogers and Mergenthaler. This is followed by accounts of the injunction brought by Mergenthaler's company against the Rogers's machine, on the claim that the letter infringed upon the Mergenthaler patents, and of the competition ensuing from introduction of Rogers's Typograph. The paper then discusses an impression-type composer developed by J. W. Shuckers, with whose company Rogers subsequently merged, and the counter-infringement suit brought against Mergenthaler for use of Shucker's spaceband mechanism. Finally, the paper discusses Mergenthaler's acquisition of the Rogers firm in 1895 and the particulars of the purchase, as well as Rogers's subsequent work in the Mergenthaler organization and Shuckers's obscurity once the patent for his spaceband mechanism was bought out. (Copies of ads for the two machines are included.) (HTH)

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